Pantechnic on sale

It is now inevitable. I’m doing a show at Vault. It’s in a van outside the door in Leake Street. Always on the fringes. Both involved and separate. A comfortable area for me.

I have no objection to sitting on my own in a van with my friend Mel, but I think It’ll be far more pleasant if there are people who have bought tickets and are sitting in the van with us. Then we can go some way towards making back some of the cash we’ve blown so far building it, while giving people a little mad slice of the inside of our heads. I’m on the look out for records of classical music laid down over fifty years ago, so we can have a bit of music as we go, because if not it’ll be generic copyright free music, plus whatever I can persuade friends to play live when they have a moment. We are under contract, tickets are live, and what’s that noise I can hear faintly at the edge of hearing…? The creak of the treadmill in the poorhouse. The crack of the orcish whips…

The fabulous Pantechnicon will be parked out front Wednesday to Sunday. Doors open at 7 and close at 10. We take up to 4 people every half an hour. Stuff will happen. Maybe you’ll save the world. Maybe you’ll save yourself. Book now. Book now. Now book. I’m good at marketing. Buy buy buy buy buy. Money money money. Spend yes spend yes click click click. That’s how it’s done, eh?

One thing I’ve noticed today: My friends are great. The unofficial union of friendly theatre types. I was trying to rent some stairs for the back of the van, so audience people can get in without skinning their shins. I went to the first hit on Google. They saw me coming. “Yeah mate you need an 8 foot steel deck under them for stability (like where do we keep that overnight?) and then a handrail and the stairs – will you be building yourself?” “Yes” “Well the decking is £27 times four weeks and then there’s the…” etc etc. I hung up when it was clear he was going to come in at £200 and then add VAT. Go boil your head, sir.

I put one of those posts up on Facebook – the speculative posts you see from time to time. “Anyone got stairs?” It’s not such a long shot despite how it looks to people outside the industry. I know so many theatre geeks and some of them even have garages.

Turns out that all I needed to do was go to the loo. I’ve been building outside the Gatsby space so I can say to the stage manager “Golfo, can I borrow your staple-gun / wazzer / gaffer tape / practical brain / finger?” My mate Ethan is a chippy and he was building some stuff for Gatsby. He said “Hey, Al, I saw on Facebook you need stairs. I’ll knock some up for you for cheap if you have any wood.” Next thing I know, I have someone else offering me the timber we need. By Friday, thanks to two friends and the time I’ve spent in the industry getting stuck in and not being an egomaniac, I have some stairs being custom built for a fraction of what it would take to rent them. And we can keep them against future shows. Or try to rent them for ‘undreds of pahnds to unsuspecting theatremakers. (I wouldn’t. You can borrow them for free. Just put a question up on Facebook.)